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I'm not convinced. This is a weird war. Russia has an enormous supply of really shitty vehicles, indifference to losing tens of thousands of soldiers, and indif

I'm not convinced. This is a weird war. Russia has an enormous supply of really shitty vehicles, indifference to losing tens of thousands of soldiers, and indifference to slaughtering civilians at will. Dumb artillery and cheap shells are a good solution for this. Will we ever see such a situation again? Russia is the only country that can do this as far as I can tell. This is a war in large part being fought with tech from 50 years ago. The new stuff is only just reaching the front. I'm not sure how relevant the lessons to be learned are. The javelins are a weird case. Yeah they probably did burn through javelins quickly. That'll happen if your enemy is careless with its troops and tanks. We can still make javelins a lot faster than Russia can make tanks, they just had a lot of tanks to begin with. We're now seeing russia roll out tanks from 60's. I'm inclined to believe that supply is rapidly running out.

mrelectric 4y ago
I would guess they're simply clearing the stock
fock 4y ago
well, if you look at GDP, russias industry is about the same size as the one of Germany. Germany has a lot less workers (and gas ;)) for that amount of $ and they produce millions of cars. I guess Russia (which I don't know for any consumable industrial output) might be able to produce quite a few tanks (also look at numbers e.g. for BMP-3, which were all produced after 1990).
- gumby 4y ago
  > well, if you look at GDP, russias industry is about the same size as the one of Germany. On a nominal basis Russia's economy is less than half Germany's and not much larger than Australia's. On PPP basis it's closer to Germany, but the industries of all three countries depend on foreign imports (Russia's especially) so PPP is less useful when considering industrial production.
- nemo 4y ago
  Germany's GDP: 3.8 trillion USD Russia's GDP: 1.4 trillion USD they're not that close in size...
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Russian manufacturers rely on foreign imports to make both tanks and cars https://www.reuters.com/business/us-official-says-export-curbs-russia-hit-car-production-tank-building-2022-03-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/us-official-says-export-cur... Which seems to be supported by russian car sales falling off a cliff, though not anything 1:1 as those cars would have included imported cars too https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-car-sales-drop-84-in-post-invasion-may-2022-246606/ https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-car-sales-drop-84-in-po... Things like artillery shells are probably fine for them to continue to produce in large quantities unfortunately. It's hard to estimate how many working vehicles russia has because a lot of them are poorly maintained, or missing parts or whatever. A lot of early analysis suggested many russian tanks were either lacking a gunner or the main gun just didn't work. Wikipedia suggests russia should have comissioned 700 BMP-3 units for itself. Open source intel has confirmed losses of 109 of them. I would tend to tack on about 30%. How many of the remaining 560 are out there? A good question. A more useful answer might be what do we actually see russia using in the field to get a better clue.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Ukraine could probably do better destroying fuel trucks than tanks. It is easier and cheaper, and a tank with no fuel becomes war materiel for Ukraine. Ukraine probably understands this, but shots of tanks blowing up is good for morale.
    - Andaith 4y ago
      I remember seeing that happen A LOT, during the inital push for Kyiv. The Ukrainians would only destroy the first few vehicles in a convoy to block the road at strategic points, then target fuel trucks. The Russians had to keep everything running to keep warm because of the time of year, but weren't advancing, and eventually abandoned a lot of vehicles and equipment. I'm pretty sure Ukraine still has more tanks than they started the war with as a result of these tactics.
golemiprague 4y ago
I don't think Russia is slaughtering civilians at will, there are no more civilian casualties than other conflicts like this in Iraq and Afghanistan not to mention Syria. For this scale of a war the numbers are actually surprisingly low, probably because the Russians see Ukrainians as almost the same as Russians. Comparing it to the bombing they did in Syria or Chechnya where they didn't care much for the people there.
topspin 4y ago
> I'm not convinced. Me either. Seems like this article characterized about the last month of the conflict. Things are about to change. Precision weapons are arriving, with trained crews and Western ammo supply. By the end of June being a Russian artillery crew anywhere near the front in Ukraine will be a bad idea with HIMARS crews hunting you. Then UK M270s come online. German MARS GMLRS are apparently on the horizon as well. German PzH 2000 will be firing on Russians by about end of this week. Added up this should blunt the one meaningful advantage the Russian's still have; massed cold war artillery. Take that away and what's left besides nukes? A horde of undersupplied Russian contract soldiers and whatever remains of their stock of PGMs. That's not sufficient to defeat Ukraine.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Very small amounts of precision weapons are arriving. More specifically, not enough. The article is correct. Numbers matter.
  - topspin 4y ago
    These are advanced weapons. They can't be integrated over night and everyone involved knows that. Meanwhile, the US Secretary Of Defense has already stated that these HIMARS are an "initial tranche." More will come with time.
    - topspin 4y ago
      The Biden admin made this official today. More HIMARS coming in July. And Ukraine is about a week early; combat footage of a HIMARS battery firing on Russians emerged from Ukraine today.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Numbers do matter, but don't read too much into Ukraine's pleas for hundreds of them. It's just hyperbole to justify getting dozens.
    - 4y ago
ncmncm 4y ago
There is China. Very, very large amounts of both unseasoned soldiers and second-rate equipment. Yet, Taiwan has reason to fear.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> This is a weird war. Russia has an enormous supply of really shitty vehicles yeah, well, imagine what would be happening if these vehicles weren't shitty > indifference to losing tens of thousands of soldiers You are comparing to recent conflicts. If you look at bit further back - during the vietnam war the US lost cose to 10,000 aircraft (helicopters, planes, everything) combined. That's about at many military aircraft as exists in the world today.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  That things are not like past wars anymore is precisely the point.

mrelectric 4y ago

I would guess they're simply clearing the stock

fock 4y ago

well, if you look at GDP, russias industry is about the same size as the one of Germany. Germany has a lot less workers (and gas ;)) for that amount of $ and they produce millions of cars. I guess Russia (which I don't know for any consumable industrial output) might be able to produce quite a few tanks (also look at numbers e.g. for BMP-3, which were all produced after 1990).

gumby 4y ago
> well, if you look at GDP, russias industry is about the same size as the one of Germany. On a nominal basis Russia's economy is less than half Germany's and not much larger than Australia's. On PPP basis it's closer to Germany, but the industries of all three countries depend on foreign imports (Russia's especially) so PPP is less useful when considering industrial production.
nemo 4y ago
Germany's GDP: 3.8 trillion USD Russia's GDP: 1.4 trillion USD they're not that close in size...
spywaregorilla 4y ago
Russian manufacturers rely on foreign imports to make both tanks and cars https://www.reuters.com/business/us-official-says-export-curbs-russia-hit-car-production-tank-building-2022-03-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/us-official-says-export-cur... Which seems to be supported by russian car sales falling off a cliff, though not anything 1:1 as those cars would have included imported cars too https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-car-sales-drop-84-in-post-invasion-may-2022-246606/ https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-car-sales-drop-84-in-po... Things like artillery shells are probably fine for them to continue to produce in large quantities unfortunately. It's hard to estimate how many working vehicles russia has because a lot of them are poorly maintained, or missing parts or whatever. A lot of early analysis suggested many russian tanks were either lacking a gunner or the main gun just didn't work. Wikipedia suggests russia should have comissioned 700 BMP-3 units for itself. Open source intel has confirmed losses of 109 of them. I would tend to tack on about 30%. How many of the remaining 560 are out there? A good question. A more useful answer might be what do we actually see russia using in the field to get a better clue.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Ukraine could probably do better destroying fuel trucks than tanks. It is easier and cheaper, and a tank with no fuel becomes war materiel for Ukraine. Ukraine probably understands this, but shots of tanks blowing up is good for morale.
  - Andaith 4y ago
    I remember seeing that happen A LOT, during the inital push for Kyiv. The Ukrainians would only destroy the first few vehicles in a convoy to block the road at strategic points, then target fuel trucks. The Russians had to keep everything running to keep warm because of the time of year, but weren't advancing, and eventually abandoned a lot of vehicles and equipment. I'm pretty sure Ukraine still has more tanks than they started the war with as a result of these tactics.

golemiprague 4y ago

I don't think Russia is slaughtering civilians at will, there are no more civilian casualties than other conflicts like this in Iraq and Afghanistan not to mention Syria. For this scale of a war the numbers are actually surprisingly low, probably because the Russians see Ukrainians as almost the same as Russians. Comparing it to the bombing they did in Syria or Chechnya where they didn't care much for the people there.

topspin 4y ago

> I'm not convinced. Me either. Seems like this article characterized about the last month of the conflict. Things are about to change. Precision weapons are arriving, with trained crews and Western ammo supply. By the end of June being a Russian artillery crew anywhere near the front in Ukraine will be a bad idea with HIMARS crews hunting you. Then UK M270s come online. German MARS GMLRS are apparently on the horizon as well. German PzH 2000 will be firing on Russians by about end of this week. Added up this should blunt the one meaningful advantage the Russian's still have; massed cold war artillery. Take that away and what's left besides nukes? A horde of undersupplied Russian contract soldiers and whatever remains of their stock of PGMs. That's not sufficient to defeat Ukraine.

ncmncm 4y ago
Very small amounts of precision weapons are arriving. More specifically, not enough. The article is correct. Numbers matter.
- topspin 4y ago
  These are advanced weapons. They can't be integrated over night and everyone involved knows that. Meanwhile, the US Secretary Of Defense has already stated that these HIMARS are an "initial tranche." More will come with time.
  - topspin 4y ago
    The Biden admin made this official today. More HIMARS coming in July. And Ukraine is about a week early; combat footage of a HIMARS battery firing on Russians emerged from Ukraine today.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Numbers do matter, but don't read too much into Ukraine's pleas for hundreds of them. It's just hyperbole to justify getting dozens.
  - 4y ago

ncmncm 4y ago

There is China. Very, very large amounts of both unseasoned soldiers and second-rate equipment. Yet, Taiwan has reason to fear.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> This is a weird war. Russia has an enormous supply of really shitty vehicles yeah, well, imagine what would be happening if these vehicles weren't shitty > indifference to losing tens of thousands of soldiers You are comparing to recent conflicts. If you look at bit further back - during the vietnam war the US lost cose to 10,000 aircraft (helicopters, planes, everything) combined. That's about at many military aircraft as exists in the world today.

spywaregorilla 4y ago
That things are not like past wars anymore is precisely the point.